


The Arc of Ascension, Fragment s9,3: they all do, all the time

by bzarcher, solarbird



Series: Of Gods and Monsters [53]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Background Femslash, Background Relationships, Central Intelligence Agency, Chat Logs, Dawning Horror, Ecopoint: China Sea, Gen, Glorious Purpose, Intelligence Gathering, Multi, Oasis (Overwatch), Other, Realization, Secret Intelligence Service | MI6, Talon Hana "D.Va" Song, Talon Lena "Tracer" Oxton, Widowtracerly, inside man - Freeform, story time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-30
Updated: 2018-08-30
Packaged: 2019-07-04 10:18:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15839223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bzarcher/pseuds/bzarcher, https://archiveofourown.org/users/solarbird/pseuds/solarbird
Summary: The new gods have risen, ready to grapple with a world of heroes. Moira O'Deorain herself has been reborn, now made one of the creations her previous self meant to rule, and she works with her wife - the goddess Mercy - and their ensemble of new deities to remake the world, toimproveit... for everyone.After spending time at the new Ecopoint, Jack Morrison finally thinks he understands just how dangerous the new 'Gods' truly are. But can he make others understand before it's too late?Of Gods and Monsters: The Arc of Ascensionis a continuance ofOf Gods and Monsters: The Arc of CreationandThe Armourer and the Living Weapon. It will be told in a series of eddas, sagas, interludes, fragments, texts, and cantos, all of which serve their individual purposes. To follow it as it appears,please subscribe to the series.





	The Arc of Ascension, Fragment s9,3: they all do, all the time

_[Late February, 2079]_

**MORRISON:** It's clean. At least, at the moment. Completely. It's exactly what they said it would be, and no more.

**M:** You're quite certain of that?

**MORRISON:** Yes. I'm no research scientist, but I know enough to sniff around, and Mei-Ling reports the same thing. Whatever else they may be doing... this is a clean operation.

**LEITER:** I suppose nobody wants the biosphere to collapse. I'm just... what’s in it for them? Just good PR?

Morrison sat at the keyboard, a moment, thinking, hard. Angela - the old Angela - would've been onboard with this as strongly as the Changed Angela, if she'd had the resources to hand out. But...

**M:** If we're starting to ask those sorts of questions, my thought is that this threat is becoming far more conventional - and far less frightening. They aren't even criminal actors, necessarily, anymore - they're state actors. States will do good, at times, even while they're doing evil.

**LEITER:** Fair enough.

**MORRISON:** Don't get lulled. I spent a lot of time there. They... 

_How can I explain this_ , he thought. He _could_ see the old Angela, underneath it all. The old Hana, too. Even the old Lena, a little, if he pretended he'd had her life's story wrong, that whole time. But...

\-----

Morrison stepped out of his temporary office on the second level of the Ecopoint. The air smelled... fresh. Not scented, not filtered, just... fresh. He shook his head, almost appreciative.

He'd been timing people's routines, and as he jogged down to the lunch room, he spotted Hana, already there, just as he expected, pulling some sort of large noodle box from cold storage. She popped it into the reheater, and hopped - so fast, so _quick_ \- over to the drinks dispenser, pouring herself some sort of tea. Lena teleported in just after he got there, and she glanced over, and saw him, and frowned.

"Lena," he said, carefully, pushing a little warmth into his voice. It wasn't the first time they'd run into each other down here - like her "mum," she'd come along for the opening ceremonies, and Hana had stuck around as well, them both helping with the inevitable 'new building' problems that always cropped up.

"Jack," she granted. They'd been friendly, even in her version of the past, once.

"Are you and Hana eating together? I'd just come down for lunch. I'm heading out on the return transport tomorrow morning... wouldn't mind some company, if you're willing."

Hana looked at him - blued steel eyes no less intense for being bluish silver, rather than one or another shade of gold - and snorted. "Collecting as much intel as you can, right?"

"If trying to see how much of you are still the people I used to know is collecting intel, then sure. That's what I'm doing."

Lena blinked, genuinely surprised. "Well, least you're bein' honest about it."

"Yeah," Hana granted. "You gonna be a jerk, or do you really just wanna chat?"

"I just want... to see who are. Now. You particularly, Hana. Not how you work, not," he sighed, "not trying to get you to become... who you used to be. I just want to see if I can find out who you _are_."

Hana and Lena glanced at each other, and, after a moment, nodded. "Let me grab a curry," Lena said. "You two pick a table while I do that. You... looks like you brought lunch?"

"I like egg sandwiches. Sue me."

Lena giggled a little, and it hurt, a little, because she sounded like she always had.

Jack gestured at the coffee machine. "But I need a refill." He pointed at a table, the same as any other in the room. "Here?"

"Sure," Hana said, hopping over and pulling out a chair, before unfolding a gigantic box of noodles. "But I'm gonna start. I'm ravenous."

Jack had his coffee in fifteen seconds, and sat down across from Hana as Lena wanted on the far side of the room for her curry to heat up.

"So you're with them, now?" he asked the MEKA, as soon as he sat.

"Not with the army anymore. Not with _you_ anymore - though..." Hana shrugged. "When I found out, I was pretty mad, but... I see how you got there." She glanced over, blued-steel eyes meeting pale blue. "But I haven't betrayed Overwatch. We don't want to go to war with you. We're really trying to be friends."

The soldier nodded, considering - maybe, even, hoping. "You seem to remember everything. Brigitte and Lúcio both said so, too."

"Yep. 'S far as I know."

"How..." he glanced up to Lena, who gave him a curious look, and then back down to Hana. "How does it _feel_ , to be... changed? You know what we know, and... I know what they offered you, and obviously, they delivered, so... I get it."

"I'd fucking hope so," she said, with a bit of a scowl. "We ended the _war_."

He nodded, genuinely sympathetic with at least that much. "I know. But that's still different from being _with_ them. And you weren't, before - but now you are. If they didn't condition you, if they didn't change your memories..." He gave her an intent look. She wasn't the sort to go over just for a reward - no matter how large. " _Why?_ "

She swallowed a large number of noodles, and took a drink from her barley tea. "Because they didn't do any of that. Not even when they could've and I never would've known. I _know_ I can trust them, and I _can_ still be me." She smiled, a little. "I can still be Hana, here. I can't, back home - or anywhere else."

"It's as simple as that?" he said, opening his lunchbox, and pulling out a packed salad as well as his sandwich and sausages, and a heating pack to reheat the latter two.

"No," she admitted, spooling more noodles onto her chopsticks. "That's a huge part of it, but it's... they're... if you're one of us... it's just... so easy."

"I've heard that before. So have you."

"I know. I just understand it now. I didn't, back then."

"You willing to explain that?"

"Not sure I can."

"Fair enough. Is it worth it?"

She didn't even have to think, but she did anyway, and came to the same conclusion.

"Yeah. It's hard, sometimes, but..." She smiled again, kind of at herself. "...it is."

\-----

**M:** They're what, Jack?

**MORRISON:** They're not human. Don't get that wrong. Even leaving physical prowess aside, they're just not. They can act like it, when they want to. Sometimes it feels like they mean it, and I think it's sincere. There were times with Angela where we might as well have been back in Geneva. But then something will trip, and then...

**LEITER:** ?

Jack thought about how to encapsulate it in a way that they'd both understand, and accept.

\-----

Lena laughed, and laughed, and laughed, recounting the events in Laval, Québec, so many months ago. Jack - having been in more than his fair share of battles - didn't need to suppress a flinch, he'd heard worse. He just nodded, and listened.

"Honestly, Jack - the way they flailed about, trying to shoot either one of us - these were _pros_. You could _tell_. But Em and I..." She shivered a little, pupils a little blown, grinning at Hana. "...we utterly p0wned them. Every single one."

Hana giggled, and nodded, working through her second box of noodles. "You never told me about the staircase incident. _That's_ hilarious."

"I didn't?" She touched Hana's free hand, as her friend filled her mouth with more noodles, and shook her head, briefly, no. "Bloody hell, that was the best part!"

Jack watched as the Weapon and the MEKA giggled, envisioning the bodies, and the blood, and could see, abstractly, how a leap across balconies and down a banister in the middle of all that chaos - firing headshots as she went - could be breathtaking. But not in the way she meant.

\-----

**MORRISON:** ...when whatever it is inside them trips, they're suddenly willing to do _anything_. If they think something needs to be done, they _will_ do it - and they'll _enjoy_ doing it. And it doesn't matter what it costs.

**LEITER:** Plenty of humans out there who are the same way. I’ve met them, and so have you, Jack.

**MORRISON:** Not like this. I've met a few who came close. But none that shared power, or desires, or goals. They do.

**M:** No group like that stays unified. Not for long.

**LEITER:** The “old” Talon went after each other every six months, it seemed like. It's amazing they accomplished anything, looking back on it.

**MORRISON:** Look, we were wrong about O'Deorain controlling them. Fareeha was perfectly willing to talk about what happened, and you've all got my brief on that. But we weren't wrong about the control existing. It's just that it's not any one of them controlling the others - it's decentralised. They're _all_ doing it to each other, _all the time_. They don't even think about it. In fact... they _like_ it.

**M:** So if one of them goes a bit mad...

**MORRISON:** They _all_ do. I think it's why Fareeha forgave Moira and Angela for what they did - for what we saw, in the video. Push comes to shove, I don't think she _couldn't_.

**M:** I begin to understand the problem.

**MORRISON:** I think maybe, finally... I might, too.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the twenty-third instalment of _Of Gods and Monsters: The Arc of Ascension_. To follow this story, [subscribe to the series via this link](https://archiveofourown.org/series/972024), rather than to the individual works.


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